


Animals

by marikunin



Series: Sehnsucht [4]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Real Person Fiction
Genre: Alternate Universe - Avatar & Benders Setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-14 00:40:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9149014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marikunin/pseuds/marikunin
Summary: The Avatar and animals.





	

Past Avatars have learned from the animals when circumstances proved scarce in finding a human teacher.

Hurit had loved watching the [whales](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_right_whale) swim just off the coast from the time she was an infant, according to her mother. Her tiny face had been enraptured by how the great animals had swam just under the water’s surface, coming up to release water from their blowholes or to bend it around their massive flippers. When Hurit had begun to waterbend at just 8 months (involuntarily, of course) no one had been surprised.

She remembered going down to the beach whenever she had a spare moment, watching the whales and how the water was a part of them and they were a part of the water. Oftentimes she would end up underneath the stars, long after chores were done and playmates were asleep.

Deep down, Hurit had felt she had watched the stars many times before. The moon would give strength to her bending, and soon she began giving lessons to some of the local children whose parents were too busy or sometimes too sick to teach them themselves.  
  
Everyone knew she was a prodigy, Hurit being able to pull moves off at the age of 7 that people thrice her age couldn’t. Even so, it was still surprising that when joking around with some friends, her mockery of an earthbending stance produced the real thing.

The other elements came to her in turn as the months, then years went on. People from her own home as well as other tribes came to her for advice, for reassurance, or just for someone to listen to them. Hurit didn’t really know why. Sure, she could bend all four elements, but she wasn’t born with a good speaking voice, like her older sister, or the strong muscles needed to bring in food like her younger brother.

Despite this, people seemed to feel better after seeing Hurit. There was no harm in allowing the custom to continue. When needing some space from her duties, or even her family (she and her husband had quite a brood) she always went to the beach.

The whales and the stars would always be waiting for her.

~  
  
Eudoxia learnt earthbending from [shrews](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Shrew) and [moles](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Mole). On Crete at her age, there hadn’t been much to do for a child of a slave much less a bending child of two nonbenders. The girl had watched the small mammals make their homes in the dirt, moving their sharp little claws to cause the earth to shift beneath them. As she began to mimic their movements, Eudoxia could…sense them underground. It was hard to explain to anyone that wasn’t an earthbender. She would place her small, usually dirtied hand to the ground. Occasionally there were little pockets where warm life made its home. She knew that the moles living near her parents masters house had had offspring a full four weeks before they emerged from their den from the first time.

Because she was a bender, Eudoxia was, eventually, able to secure her own freedom. She had hoped to do so for her parents too, but the dreams began before she could, and by the time she remembered, they had died from starvation.

The gods came to her in her sleep, telling her of grand destinies and of the power that lay just under Eudoxia’s skin. Not just Gaea’s earth, but Hephaestus’ fire, Zeus’ air, and Poseidon’s water. They led her to Delphi. On the way she learnt the other elements partly from animals, and partly from the gods in her sleep. By the time she was an Oracle and a speaker for the great god Apollo, she was a fully realized Avatar.

It was too bad that history all but forgot her for nearly two millennia before one of her future lives thought to write down Eudoxia’s story.

~

Zoroaster learned firebending when he was very young. There had been a pit of saw-scaled vipers near his home when he was little, and since his father was always busy doing his duties as a member of the priestly family they were a part of, he didn’t exactly have a choice in choosing who would teach him. He got regular tutors, of course, but he found them…rather boring.

Then he found a saw-scaled viper fighting against a large scorpion. The snake had dodged and then snapped at opportune times, its sleek body rippling with power. Eventually it had overcome the scorpion with its venom and its flames and was rewarded with its meal for likely the week.

Zoroaster was changed forever. It didn’t take long for his teachers to notice when he began performing moves that had been the territory of solely firebending masters of advanced age at the tender age of 10, and then for his family to notice.

Fire was like a dance to him and when one day air had blossomed from Zoroaster’s hands instead of the usual flames, he realized that the other elements were part of the eternal dance as well. His love of the four elements and the animals that taught him so carried on into his teachings. Fire and light were at the core of who Zoroaster was, and he hoped that his beliefs would bring the knowledge and warmth that the world so desperately needed.

In the Spirit World, he still does.

~

Her Son had been strange. Oh, so strange. Yeshua had been an obedient child, yes, and kind. But there were days where He would cause Miriam to pause, and reflect in her heart. He had been born an airbender. 

Joseph was an earthbender and Miriam herself a nonbender. There were no airbenders on either sides of their families. Nor were there many in their immediate area. The few Roman soldiers that would pass through that could airbend they didn’t even consider. Miriam and Joseph worried how the boy would learn to utilize His own bending. But they needn’t have worried so.

One morning, when Yeshua was around the age of 3, Miriam found Him watching some birds-a few [doves](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_dove)-settling into some trees nearby. He was intently watching the animals move, every flick of a wing or twitch of a tail being catalogued somewhere in His mind.

She turned back to the laundry, knowing that her Son was safe for the time being, and only turned when she felt tiny gusts of wind brushing against her clothes. Yeshua was spinning in circles, moving in a toddler’s imitation of the birds. Yeshua had found His own airbending teachers in the creatures that God had made.

It was really no surprise to Miriam, then, that her little boy became a master by the age of twelve. But then, He had begun to bend  _water_ …


End file.
